The Fan (9 page)

The high school was three blocks away. Gil hurried into the gym, rain dripping down his face. A man with a whistle around his neck hit a ground ball to a boy standing at center court, the number twenty pinned to his chest. The ball bounced off the boy’s glove. He chased it down and threw a two-hopper to a teenager standing by the man with the whistle. “That’s the way,” said the man with the whistle. He tossed the boy three fly balls, two of which he caught. “Nice job. Off you go.” The boy ran off, joining a woman in the stands. The men on the sideline wrote on their clipboards.

“Twenty-one,” said the man with the whistle. Twenty-one emerged from a group of fifty or sixty kids waiting at the far end of the court.

“Hustle.”

Gil moved down the near side, his eyes on the numbered
kids. He spotted Richie: twenty-six. He was chewing on the rawhide lace of his glove. Gil took a seat in the stands.

The drill: three grounders, three flies, six throws. Twenty-one missed them all, and threw poorly, but twenty-two fielded every ball cleanly and had a strong arm. Twenty-three’s arm was even stronger, and this time when the man with the whistle said, “Nice job,” his tone said it too. Twenty-three was a big kid, not possibly the same age as Richie.

Gil was aware of a man stepping down through the stands, sitting beside him. “Hi, Gil,” he said. “Aren’t they cute?”

Gil turned. Tim.

“Who?” Gil said.

“The kids. It’s the best age.” Tim held out his hand. “How’re you doing?”

Gil shook hands. “They’re not all nine, are they?”

“Supposed to be,” Tim said. “The tens are next, then the elevens and the twelves. The draft’s in a couple weeks, not that it matters where Richie’s concerned.”

“What do you mean?”

“Only a handful of nines make the majors. The rest play in the minors. No pressure.”

But Richie was good. Gil remembered how they’d rolled a tennis ball back and forth across the floor while Richie was still in diapers. “He’ll be right up there,” Gil said.

“Sure.” Tim opened a file. Inside were sheets of paper with five or six lines of handwritten
W
s on the top half and crayon drawings of wigwams, willows, and winter below. Tim made a red check mark on the first sheet and wrote, “Wonderful!” underlining the
W
, then turned to the next one.

“Twenty-six,” called the man with the whistle. Richie came forward, chewing on his glove.

Hustle
, thought Gil.

“Hustle,” said the man with the whistle.

Richie jogged to center court, his right foot glancing out to the side slightly on every stride. “Does he always run like that?” Gil said.

“Like what?” asked Tim, looking up from his papers.

The man with the whistle hit the first ground ball, right at Richie, but much harder than any of the other ground balls yet hit, Gil thought, and picking up topspin on the composite floor.

Glove down, glove down.

Richie stuck his glove down, but too late, and the ball went through his legs.

“Oops,” said Tim.

“No problem,” said the man with the whistle, and hit Richie another. Again: harder than the balls he’d hit the other kids.

“Glove down.” This time Gil said it aloud, but quietly, he was sure of that.

Richie got his glove down a little faster, deflecting the ball to the side. He ran after it, bobbled it, scooped it up, threw a sidearm rainbow that bounced a few times and finally rolled to the feet of the teenager.

“Much better,” said Tim.

“How long have you known about this?” Gil said.

“About what?”

“This tryout.”

“A few weeks?”

“Have you been practicing with him?”

“In this weather?”

The third grounder was on its way. “Look how hard the asshole’s hitting it,” Gil said, not loudly, and, not much louder, “Butt down, butt down.” Get your butt down and the glove comes down automatically. Had Richie heard him? Probably not, but he did get down for this one, and the ball popped into his glove.

“All right, twenty-six,” said the man with the whistle. Richie threw the ball in, a little more strongly this time, but still a sidearm toss that didn’t come close to reaching in the air.

“Crow-hop, for Christ’s sake,” Gil said. But quietly.

Richie looked into the stands.

“Here we go,” said the man with the whistle, and tossed the first fly ball.

Richie turned from the stands, realized what was happening, tried to find the ball, glancing up wildly at the gym ceiling.

“Get your fucking glove up.”

“Hey,” said Tim. “Easy.”

Richie got his glove up, but never saw the ball. It arced under the gaudy championship banners for basketball, football, wrestling, and hit him on the head.

Richie collapsed screaming on the gym floor, holding his head, jerking around in agony. The coaches with the clipboards, the man with the whistle, the teenager, all ran to him, but Gil got there first. He knelt, put his hand on Richie’s shoulder, felt his boniness under the sweat shirt.

“Richie, it’s me. You’re all right.”

Richie kept screaming and jerking.

“You’re all right. Control yourself.”

Gil pushed Richie’s hands aside, felt his head: a little bump sprouting on the side. Nothing.

“Come on, now,” Gil said. He squeezed Richie’s shoulder, not too hard.

Richie quieted. “It’s your fault,” he said, so softly Gil hardly heard. Maybe he’d imagined it.

Gil grew aware of the people standing around. He reached for Richie’s hand, helped him up. Applause from the stands.

“He okay?” asked the man with the whistle.

Gil turned on him. “You don’t worry about that,” he said. “You just worry about hitting them fair to everybody.” He walked Richie off the court.

By the second Coke and third slice of pizza, Richie had cheered up. “I did pretty good on that grounder, didn’t I?”

“Yeah. Remember to square to the ball and get your butt down.”

“I did.”

“Well, that’s the way to do it. Even more.”

“Think I’ll make it?”

“Make what?”

“The majors.”

Gil looked into his son’s eyes, light brown eyes, the same shade as his mother’s, watching closely. Richie was probably going to need glasses too, maybe needed them already. Gil was still searching for the right answer when Richie said, “Daddy Tim says it doesn’t matter whether I make it this year or not.”

That was new, Daddy Tim. Gil swallowed the rest of his beer and said, “He’s right.”

Richie nodded. He ate more pizza, drank more Coke. “The uniforms are better in the majors. You get button shirts and your name on the back. Rossi Plumbing’s the best. Green pinstripes.”

Gil ordered another beer.

“Do you think they’ll pick me?”

“Who?”

“Rossi Plumbing. That was their coach, hitting the grounders.”

“Hard to predict a draft,” Gil said.

“Think I’ll go in the first round?”

“Hard to say. How about another Coke?”

“I’m not supposed to drink Coke.”

“Who says?”

“Mom and Da—and Tim.”

“Miss?” said Gil, flagging down the waitress. “Another Coke.” He turned to Richie. “Different rules when you’re with your father.”

Richie chewed on his straw. “Did you see Jason Pellegrini?”

“Who’s he?”

“Twenty-three.”

“I think so.”

“He’s pretty good, huh?”

“Not bad. I wasn’t really watching.”

“Better than me?”

“About the same. All kids are about the same at your age.”

Richie gave him a look. “How were you, at my age?”

First pick. First pick, every goddamn time. Would have made that number twenty-three look like … like
you
. “About the same,” Gil said. He reached into his pocket, laid the tickets on the table. “Speaking of the majors,” he said.

Richie picked them up, holding them a little closer to his eyes than Gil thought normal. “Opening Day!”

“Didn’t I tell you?”

“Yeah, you told me. Thanks. Dad.”

“Pick you up at eleven, sharp.”

“How many days away is it?”

They counted them. Then they went to a movie. Something about a pirate who drowns in a shipwreck and returns to a Caribbean resort as a ghost. Gil thought it was a comedy until the ghost-pirate chopped off a croupier’s hand with his cutlass. The cutlass didn’t look authentic to Gil. Turning to point this out to Richie, he saw that his son had his eyes covered.

Gil drove Richie home, parked outside the triplex. He thought of putting his arm around Richie, giving him a hug good-bye. Then he wondered how Richie would take it, decided it might be better if Richie made the first move. Nothing happened.

Richie opened the car door. “Bye,” he said.

“Bye.” Richie closed the door, started walking across the narrow lawn.

Gil slid down the window. “Richie?”

Richie stopped and turned. “Yeah?”

“When was the last time you saw the eye doctor?”

“Was I that bad?” Richie went into the house.

“
Y
ou know what you can do with spring training.”

“What’s that, Jewel?”

“Get a grip on that dirty mind of yours, Bernie. What you can do with spring training is what Moby Dick did to Captain Ahab.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Deep-six it, Bernie. Spring training doesn’t mean—what would be a good word?”

“Squat?
”

“Perfect. When are we going to learn? It’s the same routine every year. The pitchers always jump ahead of the hitters—that was certainly true this spring, with none of the Sox swinging the bat well, excepting Primo, who’s turned into Lou Gehrig, for how long we don’t know—and everybody goes to Wallyworld and lowers his handicap. The end.”

“Then what’s the point?”

“It’s the overture, Bernie.”

“I like that. And the curtain goes up today?”

“The moment the president of the United States throws that first pitch in the dirt.”

“How do you know he’s going to do that?”

“Because that’s the way things are breaking for him. Check out the front section of the paper, Bernie. It’s not just a protective wrapper for the sports.”

Opening Day, and a beauty. Snow gone, temperature in the sixties, sky blue. Gil wore his lightweight tan suit, a blue shirt, the lucky yellow tie. He hit Mr. Fixit Hardware at nine on the dot, writing a two-box reorder on Swiss Army knives and selling a dozen Survivors, almost in passing; commission $59.36. Then he went to Cleats, ordered scrambled eggs, bacon, a draft. He took out his Survivor sample, just to assure himself he had really sold some.

“What’s that?” said Leon.

“The future of American blade making.”

“Cool handle. How much?”

“Retail? Seventy, seventy-five.”

Leon reached into his pocket. “How about sixty, for a friend?”

“It’s my sample.”

“Seventy.”

Gil sold the sample for $70. He felt a sudden lightness, as though something inside him had been cut loose from a heavy weight. Luck was in the air; such a rare sensation that at first Gil misidentified it as an alcohol buzz. He ordered
another draft, a small one, and studied the Opening Day sports supplements.

The
Globe
had color photos of all the starters, complete with bios and lifetime stats. Rayburn lived in San Diego, with his wife, Valerie, a former cheerleader at the University of Texas, and their son, Sean, age five. He liked golf, country music, and, best of all, just hanging out with his family.

“Three hundred and twenty-seven doubles,” said Gil.

“Who?” asked Leon.

“Rayburn. That’s averaging better than thirty a year. Averaging.” Gil tore out the half column devoted to Rayburn and put it in his pocket.

“Where are your seats?” Leon asked.

“Right behind home plate.”

“Wave to the camera,” Leon said.

Gil picked Richie up at eleven-thirty. Ellen was waiting at the door, coat on.

“You’re late.”

“Traffic.”

“How original.”

Richie stepped forward, wearing a Sox cap, carrying his glove. “Hi, Slugger,” Gil said.

“Hi.”

“When will you have him back?”

“Hard to say, exactly.”

“Approximately.”

“Depends on the length of the game, right, Slugger?”

“Yeah, Mom. What if it’s thirty-three innings, like Rochester–Pawtucket, 1981?”

Ellen smiled. “Hum-babe,” she said, ruffling Richie’s hair. The moment she said that, Gil found himself wishing that he could undo some things, too many to count; that he could return to some fork in the road that he hadn’t even seen on the way by. Here were all the necessary parts—Richie, Ellen, himself—together in the front hall of Ellen and Tim’s triplex, no longer shaped to forge a whole.

“Six at the latest,” Gil said.

Ellen gave him a look he hadn’t seen in a long time, not completely hostile. Luck was in the air. “Have fun,” she said and kissed Richie good-bye.

They got in the car. Gil made sure the tickets were in his pocket, then flipped on the JOC. “I’m psyched,” he said “How about you?”

“What’s
psyched?
”

“You know. Looking forward to it. Excited. Optimistic. Positive.”

“About the game?”

“Opening Day. The season. Everything.” Gil laughed, just for the hell of it.

“Me too,” said Richie. “Think we’ll snag a foul ball?”

“I don’t know. Feeling lucky?”

Richie didn’t answer immediately. Gil glanced at him. He was chewing his lip. “I hope so,” he said. “Today’s the draft.”

“The draft?”

“Whether I make the majors. Jason Pellegrini said his dad’s going to pick me, if I’m still available.”

“If you’re still available? That sounds good.”

“I thought so too,” Richie said.

“You’re a smart boy,” Gil said. “Take after your mom.”

He felt Richie’s eyes on him. “Aren’t you smart?”

“Naw,” Gil said. He turned up the volume. Jewel Stern was on.

“… players can’t help but feel jittery. I’m feeling a bit jittery myself.”

“An old pro like you?”

“Watch how you say that, Norm.”

“Jewel Stern, down at the ball yard. We’ll be back.”

Gil parked in the closest lot to the ballpark—$15. He handed the attendant an extra five. “Keep it unblocked,” he said. “And up front.”